Now, your pet too will have a UID

The scheme will also help curb the practice of abandoning dogs on the streets.

Canines living within the Kochi city limits will soon have a unique identification number, embedded on a microchip, under their skin.

The digital identification of pet dogs will replace the conventional cumbersome procedure of granting licences for pets from this December onwards. The chip implant, an integrated circuit placed under the skin of the animal, will allow officials to maintain complete information about the dog, including its age and vaccination details and the owner’s name and address.

Size of a large rice grain

The chip, about the size of a large grain of rice with a 14-digit number, uses passive radio frequency identification technology to identify the animals. It will be injected under the neck of the animal in a simple process similar to administering an injection.

“The scheme will also help curb the practice of abandoning dogs on the streets, identified to be one of the major reasons for the exponential growth of stray dogs in the city,” said M.G. Rajamanickam, district collector and stand-in mayor of the city.

The Corporation is in the final stages of developing the software, which will be operational from December. “Using the software, the chips will be linked with the identity card of the pet owner. Even if get these animals are mistakenly picked up on the field, we can trace their ownership using a reader and return them to their owners,” explained Acty George, principal investigator of the local body’s Animal Birth Control programme. According to the official, the scheme envisages separate fee for implanting dogs under the ‘general’ and ‘commercial breeder’ category, which, in turn, will help prevent indiscriminate breeding. The authorities are now working on to fix the related details such as fee for chips implant, issue of licence, among others.

A recent survey by the city corporation identified between 7,000 to 10,000 stray dogs living within the city limits. Of this, about 40 per cent belonged to the high-maintenance breeds, abandoned by their owners for various reasons

The Animal Birth Control of Dogs squad by the city corporation captured and neutered 848 stray dogs during the first five months of its operation. Last month, it picked up about 224 dogs and aims to raise the monthly average to 300 animals.